Wish I had a Dime for Every Time
by Wheatbread
Summary: I swear it was the same guy as last time, Officer. Greasy little hood, in Elvis sideburns, and swinging a baseball bat like a fat kid at a piñata festival...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer and Author's Note:** This is just a little funfiction about a game I used to play a bit too much. The story is my own, but the setting of Liberty City and all other things Grand Theft Auto III, with the exception of a character name I made up ("Harvey"), are all the intellectual property of Rockstar Games. For maximum effect, read this in a Jack Handey kind of monotone.

"_If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them." —Jack Handey_

**I Wish I had a Dime for Every Time…**

I was walking down the street in Liberty City, just minding my own business, when all of a sudden this fool in a leather jacket comes up to me and just starts whaling on me with a baseball bat. Of course, as I go down, I'm thinking, "Now this jerk will stop." But you know what? He just keeps on whapping and whapping until all of my money just magically comes out of my pockets and floats around my head. At least, I think that's what happened. But then again, the paramedics say I might have hallucinated a little when I blacked out, too.

Then this other time, I am waiting by the corner to catch a cab and all of a sudden, I see one coming. So I get out there and wave, and here comes the taxi, but something is wrong. It just keeps coming and coming until it drives right up over the curb and on top of me. And get this, the driver happens to be the same guy as before who beat me up. Except, now he wants to drive me somewheres so he can earn some honest money. Like a fool I get up, dust myself off, and get in the car.

Well, it doesn't take long before I realize _that_ was a mistake. This guy is completely out of control, running down pedestrians, driving on the sidewalk, and basically leaving a wreckage of light poles and erupting fire hydrants in our wake. He runs head-on into a fish delivery van, before finally getting going in the right direction. Then, just about the time I'm starting to think, "Whew, he's finally getting the hang of this driving stuff," he goes and t-bones a police cruiser.

Instead of letting me out like I'm begging him to do, he just floors it. And, Man, you should have seen those cops spin into pursuit. Personally, I actually didn't see them, because at the moment I happened to be puking all over the floor in the back seat.

When the guy finally gets me to my destination, I push my flopping door off its hinges and flee in terror, waving my hands over my head—just like people do when they want to express panic. But do you know what happens next? You guessed it. I hear the intensity of the taxi's idling motor suddenly rise about 30 decibels behind me. Here comes the guy again—drives after me and runs me down! Then he gets out and collects my floating money, gets back in, and drives off without even so much as a 'Have a nice day.'

I don't know how I survived, but somehow the paramedics revived me.

Sometime after my recovery I decided to go out walking, and I happened to hear some explosions nearby. So I look up and here's some guy up there on the elevated tracks, throwing hand grenades. You heard me. He's just tossing live grenades. Boom! There goes a delivery truck. Boom! There goes a Diablo Stallion. I got a funny feeling about it, so I started squinting up at the guy to be sure. And guess what. It's that same guy that ran me over and robbed me twice. Can you believe it?

Well, about that time I hear sirens, so I turn around and here comes a police car swerving toward me. Splat! I'm just lying there on the street, feeling more surprised than I really deserve to by this time. I wish I could say that is the end of the story, but it isn't. The guy on the tracks? Well, he throws another grenade and blows us all to smithereens. I wake up to the friendly faces of the paramedics again. Those guys are really unbelievable, the way they just revive you like that.

I suppose you probably figured out by now that I don't own my own car. I walk so many places. Well, that's another little conversation piece. You know, I used to have a car…


	2. Chapter 2

"_I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people." —Jack Handey_

**Money Can't Buy You Love or the Truth, but it **_**Can**_** Get You Mugged**

Liberty City is your typical cookie cutter town. Seems like everybody here is a knock off of somebody else, which is kind of weird when you start thinking about it, especially if you notice hardly anyone that lives here ever gives it much thought. I got lucky one day about a year ago, and kind of figured it out myself.

--- --- ---

I was driving around in my little Manana coupe and I waved at a guy on the corner who lives in the apartment below me. He waved back. When I got to the next corner, there he was again. So I waved at him. He waved back. I drove a little further, and blinked. There was my same neighbor again. So I waved at him and he waved back. This is downright spooky even retelling it, but would you believe this repeated itself for the next twelve blocks?

At first, I thought my neighbor had developed the super power of ubiquity, but then I happened to notice some other things. Half of the ladies on the street were wearing the same hairdo and make-up, and the other half could have passed for super twins as well with their blonde hair and high heels. And then I started getting a really weird feeling in the back of my neck. I pulled over and watched people walk past me for a good twenty minutes. All the dock workers looked the same. The gang-banger Diablos, with little variation, all had the same exact swagger and dress. There were business men, women, you name it—all of them—twins, quadruplets, hextuplets.

I started getting nervous. They couldn't have all gotten ubiquity, could they? And then I saw what I had begun to dread. A cold terror crept up my spine as the dark figure of a man came around the corner down the block and began walking up the sidewalk toward the Manana. There was something familiar about him, the way he walked and how he was dressed, but I couldn't tell for sure until he got closer. When his face came into focus, I threw that transmission into reverse, and punched the gas pedal to the floor. My Manana spun around into the wrong lane of rush hour traffic, and in the rearview as I sped away I noticed a multiple-car accident piling up, but I didn't care. I had to get out of there.

You guessed it. The guy I saw, it was…_me_.

--- --- ---

Have you ever noticed when you buy a particular kind of car, because it was cheap, or because the person selling it to you made it seem like something you just had to have, the next thing you know, you start seeing the same car everywhere? You never noticed it before, but now it seems like everyone out there is driving one. Same model, same year, same color, even the same license plate number? You might think I'm exaggerating, but in Liberty City, that feeling is, like, magnified a hundred times. It could just be me, but I really think it might be the city.

The same sort of thing happens to a person when they wake up to a new realization the way I did. I started noticing that everyone I knew was just a copy of someone else. Heck, I even started noticing that half the people in my apartment building look just like me—even got that birthmark under their left ear, right there. It kind of makes me feel…oh, I don't know…kind of bad, I guess. Like, I always wanted to fit in before, but now that I do, I sort of wish I could go back to being just a mindless clone, unaware of the truth.

After that, I went through a period of depression, completely absorbed in my own despondency. Felt like just another bland face in the crowdful of bland faces. Even my Rice Krispies seemed to be only saying "Snap," to me.

My view of the world improved slightly one hazy afternoon. I was out driving in my Manana again, or maybe it was Harvey's Manana this time. Harvey is one of the people who live in my building. This is going to sound terrible, but to tell the truth, after a while I stopped caring whose car I drove out of the parking lot, just so long as my key fit the ignition. That day, the radio happened to be on a station I don't normally tune in to. Looking back, this further supports my suspicion it might have been someone else's car. Either that, or one of my look-alikes accidentally drove my car by mistake and changed all the presets.

Anyway, so I start the car and this guy named Lazlow is suddenly talking, and the realization hits me like a floodlight from Heaven—there may actually be a number of unique people in Liberty City. For instance, there is only one Lazlow. My mood perked up immediately, and I think I heard harp music. How many other people are there like Lazlow out there? That's a rhetorical question, by the way. The answer is, none.

Picture this. I start looking around more carefully again, you know, scrutinizing people's features. This time, I was trying to pick out unique faces. Before long, one of those smoky chrome Mafia Sentinels drives past with someone inside who I rarely see on the street. I am pretty sure it was Joey Leone. He once fixed my car for me after it got all shot up and destroyed by the Triads. The initial bill was pretty high, and I was terrified at first because there was no way I could afford it, and also because someone told me Joey is connected with the Mafia, so I was somehow going to _have _to pay it. Imagine my relief, then, when Joey himself made me an offer I "could not refuse," as he put it. In lieu of payment for the shop services, all I had to do was deliver this little brown package to a guy who was eating at a diner. I went there—and it was lucky I arrived and left again when I did, because—next day—I read in the paper, only a few minutes after I drove away from that diner, somebody blew up that diner. Boy, luck can sure be a funny thing sometimes.

Anyway, when I started thinking about Joey, I recognized him as a unique person. I began compiling a list of other unique people who live in this town. Every time I see one of them, I write down their description in my notebook. I follow them home.

And then...I watch them.


	3. Chapter 3

"_I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in my brain, because later you might think you're having a good idea but it's just eggs hatching."—Jack Handey_

**A Few Moments of Wonderful **

(are Better Than a Lifetime of Nothing Special)

I know this is going to sound crazy, but there are actually people who have to look at themselves in the mirror every morning before leaving their house, just to be sure they don't have something between their teeth. The rest of us all have each other for that. But not these guys, they are the one-of-a-kind typers. Translated to the street, this means you only see them on rare occasions. But I made up my mind the day of my discovery to find out all I could about them, maybe even to meet one or two and discover how they got to be so special.

That first night, Joey unknowingly led me to Luigi's bar where a whole group of the Leone family was meeting. I added three new descriptions to my notebook right below his name and Lazlow's, but the mafia guys all looked super tough and I didn't want them noticing me. So, I hung back, and, when they parted company, I selected only one of them and followed Salvatore's car back up the hill to his mansion to see how he lived.

There were armed guards standing around waiting for him, so I just drove on past the entrance to his driveway, trying to look nonchalant. It was my first night, and I didn't have the nerve to walk up and just start interviewing professional killers. Besides, I could plainly see that all those guys out front were just copies of one another. It was Salvatore I was interested in, and for obvious reasons he just wasn't going to be all that accessible.

I got to thinking about it as I drove around the block a few more times. Seemed like most of the people I could write down on my list were somehow involved in the criminal underworld. The more I thought about it, the more I decided to look for safer individuals to study, at least at first.

Then one of the armed guards came out and rang a few shots from his Uzi into the trunk of my car. So I drove on and didn't circle around there anymore.

I spent the next two weeks tailing anyone I could find who didn't fit the mold. Anyone stood out, I followed him. Or her. And a few times I had to spend the night in jail—or in the hospital. But I figured, hey, it's the price of progress. I was on my way to self-discovery.

--- --- ---

One night I got somewhat of a break-through. After work, I went straight over to the radio station and waited until Lazlow came out. Here was somebody really safe for once. I watched him get into his car, then I trailed him back to his apartment. After parking his car, he noticed me following him up the walk, so he hurried through his door and closed it before I could get there. I heard about a dozen deadbolts and locks sliding shut. Something snapped in my brain, and before I knew what I was doing...

"I know who you are, Lazlow," I said, pounding on the door.

"Yeah? So does everybody else in this crummy town, Pal."

"But you don't know me from Adam." I guess I was hoping this would make him want to open the door and meet me.

"That's true," Lazlow admitted, "but I don't know you from Harvey, either."

It kind of worried me when he said that, because—you know—my neighbor and all. Then I remembered: Harvey once told me he works at the radio station as a janitor. It gave me an idea.

"Donald Love sent me," I said, making up the lie off the top of my head. "You won employee of the year, and I'm supposed to clean your toilet for you, for…um…a while." I couldn't believe the fabrication had just oozed from my lips like that, smooth as squeezable margarine. But I managed to stand there quietly waiting for a few seconds, instead of fleeing in panic like I wanted to.

Lazlow's hardwood floor inside creaked slightly, like he was shifting position, maybe considering the validity of my claim. Pretty soon, he would think, _Why didn't I hear of this before now? _So, I added, "But if you would rather do it yourself, I understand. I've got a wife and family waiting at home and don't care either way. I'll just tell Don Love you didn't want the service."

I turned to walk away, hoping he was watching from the peephole. Then I heard a bunch of locks sliding open.

"Wait!" Lazlow said, opening the door. He studied me for a second, probably trying to decide if I was really Harvey or not. "Come on in," he finally said, "but make it snappy. I've got a hot date tonight."

"Sure thing, Boss," I said, trying to remember my neighbor's lingo and mannerisms as I walked in. It was pretty easy impersonating Harvey. I didn't have to put on much.

I looked around and whistled. The man had taste. Leopard skin loveseat, and not a single kernel of microwave popcorn anywhere on the carpet.

"What are you looking for? The bathroom is this way." Lazlow led me down the hallway to the john. He looked at my empty hands. "Oh great," he said, rolling his eyes. "I suppose they expect me to put out my own cleaning supplies for the job."

"Actually, I forgot to bring my toilet kit," I said, sweating. "You aren't going to tell anyone, are you?"

Lazlow threw up his hands and scoffed. He walked away shaking his head. "Just…look under the sink, will you? And please make it quick. I've got some preparations to make before my lady friend arrives."

I found the cleaning supplies and started working on the toilet. For a few fleeting seconds I felt kind of sorry for Harvey, but then I noticed that I was pretty good at cleaning things. I moved right on from the toilet to the shower, and then started doing the sink before I even knew I was having fun. I had to stop myself from washing the walls. The bathroom was sparkling, but this was not why I was there.

Lazlow came back in, folding a tie around his neck. He started to say, "Are you still here?" but then stopped in surprise. He looked around the bathroom and a smile crept across his face. "Hey, Harvey, this place is looking really good."

I could feel myself beaming. "It's nothing, Boss. Just doing my job. Congratulations on the employee of the month award, by the way."

"_Month_?" Lazlow's eyes narrowed. "I thought you said, 'employee of the _year_' when you came in."

I blinked. "I probably did. Sorry, I wasn't too sure about details." I tried to look confused, not the way I really felt which was like a mouse in a corner. "But didn't you already know?" I narrowed my eyes back at him. "I mean, I thought for sure you would be expecting me. Don't tell me I've got the wrong guy, here. Aren't you Helga Lazlow? Please don't tell me I've been cleaning the wrong bathroom."

"_Helga!_" Lazlow looked bewildered. "That's a woman's name," he said.

"Look, Boss," I said, gritting my teeth and doing my best angry impression, "I don't care if you've got a woman's name or a beagle's, but just don't tell me I've scrubbed the wrong tub. They work me to death over there and then expect me to do all this other garbage on the side. It isn't worth the extra peanuts."

Lazlow stood there for a second and his face went from bewildered, to calm, and then kept right on morphing until it arrived at a kind of oily expression. He looked around the bathroom again, grinned slyly, and said, "No, no, you've got the right guy." He stuck out his hand. "Helga Lazlow at your service."

I let out a sigh of relief, which was more genuine than fake. "Harvey," I said. "Harvey Rumplestiltskin."

We shook hands and he ushered me back to the front door. "How often will you be coming," he asked me as I stepped outside.

"How dirty are you?" I asked.

"Um…"

"Just joking. The contract says I got to do it twice a week, but I can see you're a pretty neat guy. I don't want to cheat you out of your due and all, but if twice a week on the toilet's gonna be a bother, we might could work out another arrangement." I straightened up and tried to look proud. "I'm also a pretty good chef, and if you're planning a lot of dates, I'd be willing to trade off and cook for you sometimes."

Lazlow raised his eyebrows. "I'll think about it, Harv. See you around…maybe Tuesday night, then?"

I nodded and walked away smiling. Little did he know I had just conned him into letting me clean his bathroom _and_ cook for him for the next however long I wanted—all for free! Heh, heh, heh.

I got back in my car, chuckling at my own creativity, turned the ignition, and then froze.

Lazlow's trademark voice was coming through crystal clear on the radio!

It took me a few seconds of heart palpitations and deep breathing before I realized it was just a pre-recorded advertisement for his show. The entire purpose of my mission was to discover all the secrets of the unique people in town and learn how to become like them. That voice on the radio nearly put me into cardiac arrest right there. I had to laugh at myself again on the way home, knowing I would have to change my pants when I got there.

But the scare also had a way of sobering me up for the task I had embarked on. This was a risky hand I was playing, no doubt about it. However, seeing as how I didn't have anything to lose yet, I knew I was the man for the job.


	4. Chapter 4

"_Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes."—Jack Handey_

**No Winners in the Game of Life…Unless You Count All Those Millionaires**

Over the next few weeks I got to know Lazlow pretty well. I took notes and tested theories. He became comfortable having me around, and began letting down his guard. One night, he got a little tipsy and confided to me he felt his existence was pointless.

"It's like all of this…is all just a big game, Harv," he said, sipping on his beer. "Like, I exist only for the purposes of someone else, whose name and identity I don't even know. I'm just here to be a voice. A voice crying in the wilderness. Background chatter. Lazlow the chatterbox." He shook his head. "I don't know. It's just all so depressing."

He was going on and on about it, waxing philosophical. It started to make me depressed, too. I stopped washing dishes for a minute and said, "Well, at least there's only one of you."

He just kind of gave me a dull look, like my opinion didn't add up to much. "What do you mean, Harv?"

I set the goblet I was rinsing in the drying rack. "I mean, there's just one you. There's only one Lazlow."

"Yeah? So?"

"Well, look around, Boss. Liberty city is populated with clones. There's only about ten types of us around here. Me? I even get confused and forget what my real name is sometimes. I don't really have an identity. But you, Lazlow, now you are special."

He laughed at me. "No," he said, "not special. Lazlow isn't special. Lazlow, my little friend, is just about the least special— You know, you know what Lazlow is good for? Well, I'll tell ya. (hiccup.) Here's a guy, he sits there at the radio station all day, taking these stupid calls from some pretty obnoxious callers…who, I suspect, are all just made-up characters in some grand scheme of things themselves. They don't even know it. No. There's only one special person around here, and, Baby, it sure isn't Lazlow."

I frowned and put down the dish towel. Lazlow drained the rest of his beer and belched loudly. He gazed off into space, muttering something I couldn't quite hear.

"You aren't making any sense," I said. I walked over and stood above him. He just grinned up at me with that sloppy grin of his. I said, "You really think this is all a game?"

He nodded and raised his glass for me to refill it.

I ignored the glass. "This isn't a game," I said. "This is my life. Yours, mine. Whatever. But, please don't say this is just some stupid game."

He smirked up at me and wiggled his glass a little.

"Then," I said, "If you are serious…I quit." I took off my apron, crumpling it up as I went over to the coat rack. "If this is just a big game," I said, "I quit, and I'm not going to play it anymore." I threw the apron down and put my coat on. "At least not by anyone else's rules," I said.

"Come back here, you little clone!" I heard Lazlow shouting. But I didn't look back. I went out the door and slammed it behind me.

When I got to my car, Lazlow was yelling from his porch. "You're just a nobody, Harvey, do you hear me? You exist only to serve me. And I'm employee of the decade, Harvey. You get back here and finish these dishes!"

I stood there for a second, trembling with rage, surprised at myself for feeling the way I did. If Lazlow wasn't special, what was I wasting my time on him for? He had already given up all his secrets. He was just too stupid to know it.

I got in my Manana and started it, rolling down the window as the little car chugged to life.

"My name's not Harvey!" I yelled back at him.

Then I peeled out of there. Well, that is, I drove away as fast as you can, in a Manana. But I did manage to throw a few satisfying bits of gravel onto his sidewalk as I left.

And that felt good.

--- --- ---

Ten minutes later, I was sitting at a red light, still a bit dazed from the recent unfolding of events. But it was dark out, and I was already beginning to cool off. The whole thing with Lazlow telling me there was only one person who mattered in this city was just crazy. Was he simply drunk? Or…was he perhaps drunk _and_ telling things he shouldn't? My brain began hurting a little bit, trying to put it all into a form I could manage.

Something in the near distance disturbed my concentration. I couldn't help noticing the roar of a high performance engine coming up behind me. Mixed with it, there was an angry whining sound like the wailing of multiple police sirens. The traffic signal in front of me was still red, so I began looking over my shoulder to see what was happening.

A second later, a sleek red Stinger sports car popped over the hill and flew toward me at a breathtaking speed. There was nothing I could do. I braced for impact just as it plowed into the rear of the Manana.

The crunching of metal on metal deafened my ears, and flying bits of glass pelted the back my head. I felt myself rocking forward and spinning through space. The Manana bumped up over the curb and came to rest in the grass, with me still sitting behind its wheel, feeling dazed.

When I opened my eyes, there was the Stinger lying in front of me on its top, wheels still spinning. It was on fire. The police sirens were raging now, and suddenly there were patrol cars sliding around and colliding with one another in the grass. Red and blue strobes blinded my eyes for a few seconds. The smell of testosterone and adrenaline filled the air and I was overwhelmed by the miraculous chaos giving birth to itself all about me.

You can probably guess my reaction, then, when my driver's door suddenly yanked open and I looked up to see the form of a man, silhouetted in the beams of a police searchlight. He bent down, reaching for me. At first I thought my car must be on fire—just like the sports car in front of me, now in flames—and the man had come to save me. I was too shocked to move, but then he grabbed a hold of my coat and ripped me from the automobile.

I tumbled out onto the grass. When I rolled over and looked up, my car was streaking away and the police were stumbling all over one another, trying to get back into their own cars.

In a matter of a few seconds I was left utterly alone again, sitting in the grass and wondering what just happened. The sirens wailed off into the night. The faceless stranger had disappeared along with the last glimpses of the tail lights from my only means of transportation. He was the man everyone wanted—the man at the very front of the parade.

I stood to my feet, checking myself over for any broken bones or blood, but except for a disheveled sense of mobility I seemed to have emerged from the wreck unscathed. I began walking.

"I have no car," I told myself.

"It is gone."

I snapped my fingers. "Poof," I said. "Gone."

I walked a little further. "Where am I going?" I asked myself.

"Well, I'm walking home, where else would I go?"

And so, that's what I did. And along the way, I had plenty of time to come to some conclusions. There is only one special person in this city. And it sure isn't me. The purpose of my existence is only to provide him a car when he chooses to take it. And to maybe throw my coat down for him on a mud puddle so he won't get his precious feet wet when he steps down.

Somehow in my heightened state of shock, it seemed to all make sense, like I had just solved the great riddle of life or something. That's how I felt that night. Everything was as it should be.

--- --- ---

The next day, I woke up aching. Reality had settled in again. I didn't have a car, and my knees were bruised. What kind of nonsense had I been thinking the night before?

I walked to work that morning and I forgot about everything I had learned. When I saw my neighbor on every corner I waved at him. And when I saw my other neighbors in the hallway when I got home I didn't notice they all looked just like me. Everything was back to normal.

And then one day, I found a little crumpled notebook in the pocket of my coat. And when I opened it, it took me a while after I read through all the notes, but eventually I figured something out.

This was not my coat.


End file.
